According to a new study, 92 percent of college students — those digital native Millennials — would rather do their reading the old-fashioned way: with pages, not pixels. And it’s not just Generation Y: research confirms that many people prefer physical novels, textbooks, magazines, even vinyl albums to their digital counterparts.
 
While we appear to be moving towards a primarily digital society, the appeal of paper continues. And new scientific efforts are attempting to explain why. 
 
On the surface, the power of print seems to stem from simple emotional attachment. Certainly, bibliophiles will tout the heft, look, and the smell of books, the satisfaction of cracking open a new tome or the pleasure of returning to a well-worn novel again and again. A book that recalls special childhood moments, a formative college semester, a notable trip abroad. The human touch is carried in printed books. This cannot yet be replicated on screens.   
 
But there is more at work here than simple nostalgia.
 
A growing weight of scientific evidence is vouching for the importance of the printed word and learning. For example, studies have found that students don’t connect with digital texts in the same way they do with those in print.
 
In the experiment, half of the participants read a story on paper, and the other half read the same story on screen. Participants reading the story digitally found it to be much less immersive and emotionally resonant than those who read it in text. Moreover, those who read on paper were much more capable of placing the story’s events in chronological order.
 
Other studies have produced similar findings. Research from the American Educational Research Association found that students comprehend material read in traditional books at a much higher level than material read on an iPad. And, while students were highly motivated by their interactions with e-books, they often skipped over text that contained important information.
 
As we become more accustomed to reading on screens, we learn to skim or allow our eyes to dart around a web page, fending off distractions. This is what’s known as “non-linear reading.”  Linear reading – where the text is read systematically – is required for what Sven Birkerts termed ‘deep reading’; a skill required to digest dense texts like novels, mortgage documents and academic essays.
 
Research from Canadian neuromarketing firm TrueImpact seems to extend this observation to marketing. Using a combination of eye-tracking and brain scanning, the company found that reading direct mail requires 21 percent less cognitive effort than the digital alternative. Less cognitive effort equates to better comprehension and retention, the study explains, both vital indicators of the effectiveness of a campaign.
 
Another field of inquiry points to the significance of the physical act of turning pages. This motion helps readers orient themselves within the plot sequence, enabling them to map the journey in their minds while reading on screen prevents people from navigating long texts in an intuitive manner. As we read a book, we create a mental representation of the text, where meaning is connected to the physical structure, that is: “this event happened at the bottom left of a page about half-way through the book.” While it’s not clear exactly how this works, it may be similar to how we map terrain, like knowing that you’ll pass a blue house just before you turn left.
 
There’s something emotionally gratifying about knowing where you are in a book, how much you’ve read, and how far you have left to go before the end; a measure that the “percentage read” footnotes just doesn’t do justice. The lack of satisfying, innate way-finding may inhibit reading comprehension and make it harder to remember what we have read. The haptic and tactile experiences associated with printed material deliver essential value that supports comprehension.
 
Dr. Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University, says, “I don’t worry that we’ll become dumb because of the internet, but I worry we will not use our most preciously acquired deep reading processes because we’re just given too much stimulation.” The goal is a “discerning ‘bi-literate’ brain” that understands when to deploy deep reading and when to scan and skip from one thing to another.
 
It’s clear that while more research is needed, there are emotional, neuroscientific, and psychological reasons why digital text, for all its benefits, will never fully replace the written word.
 
Christoph Ruef is VP and GM of HP’s multi-billion dollar America’s printing business. He has spent nearly 30 years working on HP’s print operations, managing global product strategy, marketing, go-to-market strategy and sales. He has worked for HP in Europe, Asia and the United States. In these markets, he has overseen tectonic changes to the printing market, navigating the transition from black and white to color printers and from single function to All-in-One products. Ruef speaks English and German and resides in San Diego.